Placer deposits comment not correct

Your article of August 22nd on Queenstakes’ placer operation in the Atlin mining camp of British Colubia was both enjoyable and informative. However, two comments on placer deposits in general were included which evidence indicates are not applicable to the origins of Atlin’s placer gold.

To quote, “. * * Gold placers are superficial mineral deposits formed by mechanical concentration of weathered particles * * .” (true) and “the discovery of a placer gold deposits is generally not indicative of a larger, higher grade, hard rock gold deposit nearby.”

While these observations are indeed true in the case of many placer deposits, they do not fit the Atlin scenario.

Following the discovery in 1898 of the Atlin placers by Fritz Miller who was driving cattle to Dawson, (Atlin, Teslin & Tagash Lakes are the main sources of the Yukon River), some 12 high grade (small) lodes of visible gold were discovered, alloys in quartz. Until 1981, no effort was made, using modern techniques, to locate larger lode sources under overburden.

The Atlin placer gold is coarse (no “flour” and nuggets up to 70+ oz), frequently angular, and discreetly-occurring, ending abruptly at some upstream point in the placer-bearing creeks. The gold, when not pure, is usually interbedded with quartz. Nuggets are often found coated with talc, indicating little “travel.”

The GSC, which has studied the geology, structure, lithology and geochemistry if the Atlin area for many years, believes the placers have their origins in quartz veins and stockworks found at the margins of the prolific altered ultramafics (listwaenite). R. Bruce Ballantine (GSC) has stated his opinion in a published article that Atlin’s geology is identical to California’s “motherlode.”

During the past few years, my partnership’s work and that of both juniors and majors, has resulted in the location of substantial alteration zones, large bodies of quartz; a small “jewelry shop” of visible gold; some good widths of good grades in cores, and an emerging “handle” on structure, geology, geophysics and geochemistry.

Our belief in the presence of high-grade lode sources of the placer gold, exposed at contact with overburden, has led us to expand our holdings to more than 560 claims covering the upper ends of five and possibly six of Atlin’s eight major placer deposits.

I sincerely hope we can prove the article’s general references to placer camps inapplicable to Atlin. David Purvis Vancouver, B.C.